1 a Calculation of the Environmental Footprint of a Granular Activated Carbon Regeneration Facility Katherine He ABSTRACT the U
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Katherine He Environmental Footprint of Regenerating GAC Spring 2012 A Calculation of the Environmental Footprint of a Granular Activated Carbon Regeneration Facility Katherine He ABSTRACT The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Superfund Division is responsible for maintaining a high standard of environmental quality, and thus must deal with the environment impacts of its own remedial activities. The regeneration of granular activated carbon (GAC), a substance used to purify contaminated water, is one example of a remediation activity with substantial environmental impacts. The objective of my project is to calculate the environmental footprint of GAC regeneration at the Siemens Reactivation facility in Parker, Arizona. I calculated the electricity usage, natural gas usage, potable water usage, employee gasoline usage, and wastewater production using information from site diagrams, facility process maps, and literature searches. I converted these values into units of CO2e, NOx, SOx, PM10, and HAP using conversion values from the EPA Methodology for Understanding and Reducing a Project's Environmental Footprint. I found that the largest environmental impact resulted from natural gas consumption and electricity usage in the carbon regeneration building. The selection of context- dependent conversion factors greatly impacted the accuracy of my results. Using the results from my GAC environmental impact assessment, remedial project managers can more effectively apply green remediation principles to their projects. KEYWORDS remediation, carbon footprint, climate change, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Superfund 1 Katherine He Environmental Footprint of Regenerating GAC Spring 2012 INTRODUCTION The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for monitoring and enforcing a high standard of environmental quality, and thus must also regulate the environmental impacts of its own remedial activities (EPA 2011a). The EPA Superfund program, established in response to human-induced environmental disasters in the 1970s, initiates and executes cleanup of abandoned hazardous waste sites, termed “Superfund” sites. The multistep Superfund cleanup process includes conducting rigorous site assessments, designing specific remediation strategies, and constructing contaminant profiles (EPA 2011b). Remedial activities also have their own negative environmental impacts. The Superfund Program has acknowledged the potential environmental impact of its operations and as a result has developed a methodology to quantify the impacts of remediation projects and processes. This method outlines a process to estimate environmental impacts of specific remediation activities in all steps of the Superfund cleanup process (EPA 2012). The methodology investigates the extent of impacts associated with energy usage, water usage, material inputs, and waste discharge (ibid.). Superfund projects can last decades due to the complexity of projects and the EPA goal of sustained environmental protection in remediated sites (EPA 2011b). Consequently, these long-term cleanup projects can have substantial long-term environmental impacts (ibid.). For example, the Iron Mountain Mine cleanup project has cost nearly USD 55.5 million and has altered natural waterway trajectories to facilitate contaminant management (Region 9: Superfund 2011). EPA diverted streams loaded with heavy metals from the mine site to a water treatment plant. This diversion of water impacted the benthic invertebrate ecology and water quality of nearby riparian ecosystems (EPA 2004). These impacts were a direct result of the EPA-initiated remediation activities. The environmental footprint calculator used to estimate these and other impacts is currently being developed (Scheuermann, personal communication). Due to the novelty of the methodology and calculator, environmental impact values of many common remediation strategies incorporated in the footprint calculator are incomplete. The regeneration of granular activated carbon (GAC) is one example of a Superfund site remediation activity whose calculated environmental footprint is incomplete. Activated carbon, a porous carbon-rich material, is used to filter harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from contaminated water (Cannon et al. 1994). It has enormous adsorptive potential because it has the 2 Katherine He Environmental Footprint of Regenerating GAC Spring 2012 largest surface area to mass ratio of any known substance (Mohan and Singh 2005). When contaminated water is poured into a matrix of GAC, the contaminants are attracted to the GAC’s large surface area and are captured in the matrix (ibid.). Activated carbon is produced by heating various materials like coal, coconut shells, and bone to temperatures of 1000 °C (Mohan and Singh 2005, Bayer 2005). After use in water treatment, GAC can be regenerated through exposure to temperatures up to 800 °C in the presence of a mildly oxidative atmosphere (provided by steam and/or carbon dioxide). The heat and oxidative conditions vaporize the VOCs, which may be vented to the atmosphere in low concentrations (San Miguel et al. 2001). The regeneration of GAC plays an important role in decreasing the demand for creation of virgin, or previously unused, GAC (San Miguel et al. 2001). This recycling process has many ecological benefits such as reducing the need for new GAC, but the recycling process could possibly be inefficient and more polluting than creating new GAC. The comparison between the environmental impacts of new GAC and recycled GAC is crucial to choosing an alternative that best promotes environmental sustainability. A preliminary environmental footprint of GAC regeneration has already been calculated, but it only quantifies electricity usage, natural gas usage, water usage, and wastewater discharged, and does not account for many resource inputs of machines used in the regeneration process (Scheuermann, personal communication). Thus, there is a need to improve the estimated environmental footprint of the GAC regeneration process to better reflect all of its consequences. The objective of my project is to refine the current calculations of the environmental footprint of GAC regeneration to provide a more accurate environmental assessment tool. This objective will help answer the broader research question of how ecologically sustainable remediation methods can be implemented in Superfund site remedy decision models. To accomplish this research objective, I will recalculate the results from the existing environmental impact analysis to double-check previously calculated values and to include categories that are inclusive of different emission categories. I will compile my results and present them to the EPA Superfund Division. 3 Katherine He Environmental Footprint of Regenerating GAC Spring 2012 BACKGROUND The Siemens Water Technologies Corporation Parker Reactivation Facility in Parker, Arizona reactivates spent carbon using a thermal regeneration process: spent GAC is heated in a reactivation furnace, vaporizing the contaminants on the carbon. These contaminants are filtered from the furnace exhaust and vented to the atmosphere at regulated levels (Siemens 2007). The facility processes both vapor phase and liquid phase carbon with and without chlorinated contaminants. This distinction is important because different types of spent GAC have different resource consumption requirements (ibid.). In addition to the carbon regeneration facility, the Siemens facility has on-site support buildings including a carbon product warehouse, a drum storage warehouse, and administrative offices (ibid.). Activities that support the carbon regeneration facility are emissions monitoring, on-site and off-site wastewater treatment, employee transportation, and laboratory analysis (to determine the contaminant composition). The facility is currently undergoing a permitting process and has released a permit application that includes information about the layout and specifications of their machines and buildings (Siemens 2007). This permit application was a major source of information for my study. METHODS I separated the environmental impacts into six components: (1) electricity impacts, (2) natural gas impacts, (3) water impacts, (4) transportation impacts, (5) laboratory analysis, and (6) treatment chemicals. I calculated CO2 emissions, NOx emissions, SOx emissions, PM10 emissions, and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions for each component. I used Excel spreadsheets to organize my data. General assumptions Data in the process maps from the Siemens permit application was separated by carbon phase (vapor versus liquid) and carbon chlorination (non-chlorinated versus chlorinated). I 4 Katherine He Environmental Footprint of Regenerating GAC Spring 2012 assumed a breakdown of 25% liquid phase non-chlorinated carbon, 25% liquid phase chlorinated carbon, 25% vapor phase non-chlorinated carbon, and 25% vapor phase chlorinated carbon (Scheuermann, personal communication). I applied a 0.9 capacity factor to all processes in the regeneration building by multiplying final spent carbon and resource consumption estimates by 0.9 (Scheuermann, personal communication). This capacity factor accounts for downtime due to equipment maintenance and holidays. The 0.9 capacity factor was not applied to warehouse/office electricity and water consumption, transportation, or lab analysis - I incorporated system downtime for these activities using other methods. I assumed 100% of energy consumption in warehouses